It's called Tactical Advantage!
by FurudeRika
Summary: Curiosity knows no bounds when someone decides to test it out on your opponents in a very cruel method: Putting it into their food.


**This came to me on a whim. This happened when I went to the coliseum in Baticul and faced those cameos (Reid, Mint, Philia and Nanaly) in the advanced party battle.**

**The thought came to me when...Oh wait. I should just let you guys read the oneshot below. XD Also. This is actually my first one shot.  
**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Tales of the Abyss in any way. It is purely fanmade.**

**Enjoy Desu~!**

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It's called Tactical Advantage!!

"You won!! You won!! You really won!!" the announcer cried in excitement after their first battle as some soldiers cleared the arena of the dead bodies of the monsters. Since Luke wanted to check out what the coliseum was like, he sidetracked the whole quest as the young noble's curiosity knows no bounds. Then again...the manor did keep the coliseum a secret from him. The party consists of two melee units which are Luke and Guy and two fonists with range, Jade and Natalia. Luke scoffed.

"Wow, not bad for the first round!" Luke said excitedly.

"Don't get your hopes up," Natalia hissed. "The monsters are going to get stronger than this."

"I know, I know!" Luke made circles with his hand towards the direction of Natalia.

"The tournament is now well underway and the enemies are fierce!" the announcer continued. She held up her hand in the air to signify the start of the next round. "Round two...Ready...G-"

"Wait!"

Everybody turned to stare at Jade who was...cooking something? The colonel already had a small fire going with a pot of boiling stew above it. Luke walked over to him with a frown on his face.

"Jade, we don't have time for this!"

"The rules said we can cook after each battle so that we are ready for the next fight," Jade said simply. He added a bit of herbs into the pot mixture before continuing. "I just thought that it would be fair for all of us."

"It did?" Luke asked. He, as well as the whole audience, turned their attention to the announcer who was flipping through a manual book which held the rules in it. After staring at the book intently, the announcer looked up at them with a surprised look.

"Ah, he's right!" She nodded. "Winners of the round have the option to cook before the next battle."

Luke groaned, "I really want to test out my sword on the next monsters. But I guess we should be ready for the next fight in case it's a strong monster."

"My, this is delicious!" Natalia commented as she and Guy joined Jade with the stew that he made. Guy nodded several times in agreement.

"Jade really has good cooking skills, unlike a certain pair I know."

"What do you mean by that, Guy?" Natalia shot a look at Guy who flinched and muttered "Nothing." before returning to his stew. Jade stood up and walked over to the announcer.

"It appears I have made too much for just the four of us, for just one round," he stated. He pushed his glasses up. "Would you mind feeding this to our next opponents so that it would be considered fair?"

"O-Of course!" the announcer stuttered. She ran over to the pot and scooped a fair amount of the stew and ran to the other end where the next hoards of monsters and/or human opponents are being held. In the meantime, Luke stared at Jade suspiciously.

"What are you up to?"

"I have no clue why you would ask that," Jade answered with a shrug. "I simply just made too much. And besides, if we were to save it for the end of the next round, it would go cold and taste bad. You wouldn't want to waste food like that, would you Luke?"

"I guess not." Luke shrugged; he walked into position as the announcer returns. "Though I can't help but feel that you were up to something…"

"Did you say something, Luke?" Guy asked as he joins him at the front of the formation. He readied his blade and sheath as the gates opened slowly allowing the monster or monsters to come out.

"Nothing," he said quickly. "Just thinking to myself." He charged at the Tyrantoise as soon as the battle began. After dispatching that monster, Jade made yet more stew and they faced a Dragon next to win the tournament. Again, he made stew for some unknown reason, even when they won the tournament. They were about to leave the arena just when they received a challenge from another group of people who has the same number of people in the arena like they do except that they seem to be more experienced and powerful. Unable to back out, they fought in one last round of the tournament. The group struggle in the battle but the emerged victorious. Luke stretched his arms in the air as they left the coliseum before letting them back with a sated sigh.

"Man that last battle was hard!"

"Yes, I agree," Natalia nodded. "That was not just a simple battle."

"From the sidelines, it looks like we were going to lose!" Anise chirped. Luke frowned at her.

"So much for cheering us on, Anise," he said, still frowning. "I bet you didn't care because we got the prize money."

"Boo! Of course not!" she huffed, even though it was blatantly obvious that she cared about the money. "Give me a little more trust here!"

"Well we would have lost…" Jade started.

"What do you mean…'would have'…?" Guy asked in a semi-dangerous tone.

Jade shrugged. "I just add some of my medicine that I made earlier into the stew after Luke had his share. As well as all the other times I made stew except that I increase the quantity of the medicine with at the end of each battle."

"Wh-What kind of medicine…?" Luke asked. He recoiled a bit when he came into a realization. "You don't mean…!"

"The medicine that you made out of curiosity?!" Tear completed the sentence for him. She recoiled just like Luke, while the both of them remember the conversation they had with him a few days back. "Colonel, that's unbelievable!"

"Well no one actually wanted to be my guinea pig, so I used it on our opponents." Jade shrugged casually as if he has done nothing wrong. "But because of that, we won the battle."

"No wonder I saw some of them leaning a bit as if they had taken something they shouldn't have before a battle…" Guy smacked his forehead and sighed. "That is what I call evil."

"Well, I call it tactical advantage," Jade laughed sarcastically. "After all, no one should trust anything given by their enemy or opponent. No one knows what might be in whatever they have taken. Though I still have quite a lot of medicine left to test out their effects on others."

"I'm…staying away from anything you make from now on…" Guy declared.

"I'm with Guy on that," Anise agreed.

"As will I…" Natalia nodded.

Jade sighed. He shrugged as he sighed. "You youngsters really shouldn't be taking me so seriously."

"That's because we can't tell what you're thinking!" they all said in unison. Jade's response was just pushing up his glasses.

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**Ah…the skit with Jade's curiosity. It just came to me randomly while I had him cook for the party at the end of the battle in the coliseum. Anyway. Review please!**

**Ni-pah~!**


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